Main » Cabinet reshuffle likely on weekend: a few big changes on the cards

Cabinet reshuffle likely on weekend: a few big changes on the cards

02 September 2017

There was no official announcement of the cabinet revamp but sources Reuters spoke to said if it took place it would have to be done before Modi leaves on a foreign tour on Sunday.

With a major upheaval of the Cabinet expected anytime soon, several new faces, including some from the BJP's allies, are expected to join the government when Prime Minister Narendra Modi reshuffles his council of ministers in the next two days.

Third, had the Doklam crisis not been resolved amicably as indeed it was on August 28, Modi would have definitely been under enormous pressure to appoint a full-fledged defence minister, because in that event a part-time defence minister would have been politically incorrect.

A reshuffle in the cabinet has been due for months now. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had predicted a decline of two per cent in the GDP growth rate figures following demonetisation.

Ananth Kumar holds the portfolios of Chemicals & Fertilisers and Parliamentary Affairs, while Dr Harshvardhan has been handling the additional charge of Forest & Environment after the death of Anil Dave, besides holding the Ministry of Science, Technology & Earth Sciences. He was elected to the Lok Sabha in 2014 from Chandauli, an eastern UP constituency, and was appointed in 2016 as a minister of state for human resource development (HRD). One can not be sure if finance minister Arun Jaitley, who has been having the additional portfolio of defence ministry since the exit of Manohar Parrikar several months ago, will be shedding the defence portfolio. Here is the list of ministers who resigned and those who offered to resign. This is what he was doing as the chief minister of Gujarat.

Ganga rejuvenation was the pet project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Balyan and his boss, Uma Bharti, seems to have not made any visible progress in it. India's almost Rs 20,000 crore plan to clean the holy Ganga river is badly behind schedule, with large stretches contaminated by toxic waste and sewage, forcing Modi to intervene.

Agriculture minister Radhamohan Singh is also expected to go, because of the Madhya Pradesh farmer protests. Exit of 76-year-old Kalraj Mishra as minister nearly seems a fait accompli.

News reports said they were asked for their resignations by BJP party president Amit Shah.

The government may also announce new governors for five states. This was followed late on Thursday evening by a slew of Union ministers who offered their resignations. Modi, in his address to tax officials on the first day of the two-day annual conference of tax administrators, Rajaswa Gyan Sangam, also emphasised that the honest taxpayers can not continue to pay the price for the misdeeds of the dishonest and that tax officers need to come up with a time-bound solution for "tax raised and not realised".

The current strength of the council of ministers, including the prime minister, is 73 and the maximum number of ministers can not go beyond 81.